Review with Double Giveaway

Under The Black Ensign:
Crew members are barely fed, made to work past the brisk of exhaustion and kept in line with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Bristol’s career as first mate of the Maryland bark Randolph abruptly ends during a shore leave when he’s press ganged into serving aboard the British HMS Terror.
Tom Bristol’s new pirate mates desert him quickly after he’s found guilty of killing another pirate and harboring a woman on board.

The Great Secret:
Fanner Marston was raised a salve as a child, became a petty street thief as a teen, and now masters his own craft and crew as a grown man. He’s also gone completely mad!
Driven by privation, with a vicious greed and slavering lust for power, Marston alone of forty men has survived the perilous trek through a blistering desert to the magical city of Parva, where legend says a secret awaits which will give him absolute control over the Universe. Will he find the secret that awaits?